The cashier arrested last month for stealing crores from bank accounts of unsuspecting customers at State Bank of India’s (SBI) branch in Sadiq, Faridkot, was assisted by his wife and a friend in the crime, police probe has revealed.
Apart from the 186 complaints received from bank customers by the end of July, alleging theft of ₹14 crore in all from their accounts, 14 more complaints have poured in over the last 20 days, claiming loss of another ₹1 crore.
Faridkot senior superintendent of police (SSP) Pragya Jain remained unavailable for comments on the progress in the case in which around 200 villagers were duped.
Officials privy to the case said investigation revealed suspicious transactions amounting to ₹2.30 crore in the account of Rupinder Kaur, wife of the mastermind, Amit Dhingra, who had been working for SBI for 15 years.
She was the first one to be arrested in the case on July 24, before Amit’s arrest from Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura district on July 30.
A week later, a friend of the cashier, Abhishekh Kumar Gupta, was arrested on August 7, and gold ornaments and other articles were recovered from him.
{{/usCountry}}A week later, a friend of the cashier, Abhishekh Kumar Gupta, was arrested on August 7, and gold ornaments and other articles were recovered from him.
{{/usCountry}}While Rupinder’s bank account was operated and controlled by Amit, and linked to his mobile number, the bills of gold ornaments recovered from Gupta were also in Amit’s name, said investigators.
Sadiq station house officer (SHO) Navdeep Singh said raids were being conducted to nab more culprits in the crime. “So far, we have arrested Amit, his wife and his friend. All three are in judicial custody. More arrests are likely soon,” said the SHO.
The scam was unravelled incidentally when an account holder visited the branch on July 21 to find large-scale discrepancies in his savings account.
According to the SBI authorities, Amit was recently transferred to another branch in Sadiq. But instead of joining his new place of posting, he kept visiting this branch and gained access to the branch’s banking fraudulently. Immediately after getting a tip-off that customers were duped by the cashier, a police complaint was lodged the same day.
Bank issuing refund with compensation
Regional SBI manager Praveen Soni on Wednesday said in the first phase, the bank had refunded ₹25 lakh to some of the affected customers.
Soni said SBI had committed to refund the losses with 1% compensation within 90 days of the complaint submitted to the bank.
He said Amit had issued forged fixed deposits (FDs) receipts to bank account holders while swindling funds from their savings accounts and kisan credit cards (KCCs).
“No irregularity in the bank lockers and gold loan has been found so far. We are working to audit the fraud committed at the branch by Amit and the exact amount of the cheating is likely to be surfaced within 15-20 days as our teams are verifying the complaints,” added the official.
He said a departmental inquiry had also been instituted to fix the responsibility of its staff for committing procedural lapses in the financial irregularities.
“Investigation so far has not indicated involvement of any other SBI staffers. But there were supervisory lapses, allowing Amit to fleece the bank account holders. Suitable action will be initiated against the erring bank officials,” said Soni, an assistant general manager-rank officer of SBI.